Do Adult Attachment Style or Personality Mediate the Relationship Between Childhood Maltreatment and Late-Life Depression in Poor Communities?

OBJECTIVE: Childhood maltreatment is associated with late-life depression. Preliminary evidence indicates that personality characteristics, in particular neuroticism and extroversion, and an anxious attachment style mediate this association. The objective is to evaluate 3 models, in which personality and attachment are considered mediators between childhood maltreatment and late-life depression in a socioeconomically disadvantaged Brazilian population. METHODS: This study included participants (n = 260) from socioeconomically disadvantaged neighborhoods of Porto Alegre, Brazil, who completed measures of childhood maltreatment (Childhood Trauma Questionnaire - CTQ), personality characteristics (NEO-Five Factor Inventory), attachment styles (Relationship Scales Questionnaire), and geriatric depression (Mini-International Neuropsychiatric Interview-Plus). General multiple and sequential mediation analyses were used to test for possible associations. RESULTS: Attachment anxiety but not attachment avoidance is a mediator between childhood maltreatment and geriatric depression. Neuroticism is a full mediator. At that, attachment anxiety was found to be a predictor of neuroticism. Finally, sequential mediation analysis shows a path from childhood maltreatment to geriatric depression through attachment anxiety and neuroticism. CONCLUSIONS: The results suggest a pathway from childhood maltreatment to anxious attachment, which in turn predicts higher neuroticism that itself may favor late-life depression. This hypothesis could have implications for older adults living in low socioeconomic settings in that treating the high-risk group of maltreated children may help prevent late-life depression.

Calling: Never seen before or heard of - A survey among Swiss physicians.

BACKGROUND: Research is needed to gain a deeper understanding of what motivates physicians to do their work and what keeps them in the profession. OBJECTIVES: To explore calling as an approach to work in a sample of physicians. METHODS: We designed an online survey addressing career choice and career calling among physicians in French-speaking Switzerland, and measured associations between calling and categorical variables (participant characteristics, motivations for choosing medicine, career choice(s) and consistency, and definition of calling). RESULTS: The majority of physicians (n = 229) reported that a calling was not a career motivator. The main reasons for becoming a physician were to be useful (n = 173), the scientific aspects of medicine (n = 168), and altruism (n = 153). Viewing medicine as a calling was significantly associated with having been attracted specifically and only to the medical career and stability of this career choice. Physicians defined a calling as internal summons (n = 140), passion (n = 126), and sense of purpose in life (n = 101). Being in the right place, internal summons, and passion were significantly more often considered as a definition for calling by physicians with a calling. CONCLUSIONS: A sense of calling influences career choice and professional stability, and might play a protective role in exhaustion or dissatisfaction at work.